Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Testing with professional experienced with gifted

I have noticed in several threads people mentioning having their child tested by someone experienced working with gifted kids. This may sound like a silly question, but why is it important that they have experience with gifted kids? Wouldn't the scores be equally valid regardless of the population they normally see? And if it is important, how does one go about finding professionals that are experienced with gifted? (and on a tangent note, I have yet to find an OT experienced with gifted. People look at me like I have two heads when I ask the question and I get the "we have experience will ALL kinds of kids and have many, many bright kids."

Thought?_

I'm not sure it matters in terms of the test scores, though the write-ups will be different and more extensive from a specialized psychologist. I think going through schools or a private child psychologist is fine, though you may want to research what tests will be most useful for your needs. Hope that helps.

I too wonder about this. It seems like all the kids they used to norm the test likely didn't have a tester that was familiar with whatever their specific needs were. It does make me wonder if seeking a gifted tester inflates scores compared to the norm sample. I mean, yes, everyone should have an ideal tester--but does everyone get that?

Beyond that I was surprised as just how subjective the scoring of some parts of the test were. I was told that an experienced gifted tester would better understand how to best pace the test for a gifted child and when to ask for more info if their answer were more oblique. But I do wonder if this isn't done for every child--it does seem to skew the results.
I was also told testers might feel "threatened" by a child so much brighter than themselves--and it might negatively bias it. But I think any good physiologist who can honestly treat everyone equal should be able to get acceptable results. The part where I do think it matters is that gifted psychologists are going to be in a much better position to interpret results. If they don't even know that extended norms exist you might not get as much info out of the test as you would otherwise.


In the end we went for someone experienced with gifted. I'm really curious though how the results would stack up if we tested again with someone else.

It does depend on what sort of testing you are having done as well. With DS5 we had some concerns about ADHD, but knew he was clearly gifted. Because some aspects of giftedness can appear superficially similar to ADHD, having a tester familiar with both presentations was important to us.

While there's a fair amount of objective testing that can be done, a lot of the diagnosis process involves personal judgments as well, especially to put all the disparate testing information together, especially if you are concerned about dual diagnoses (i.e. having both autism spectrum and giftedness). In addition, the presence of giftedness can have an effect on recommended interventions. Dr Amend has a fairly accessible book on the subject (Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children and Adults) if you want to get deeper into the topic.

WRT occupational therapists, and I recognize that my view is likely a minority viewpoint on the board and probably a function of small sampling, I find that OTs are really good at seeing stuff that they can treat regardless of its presence or the efficacy of the treatment.

On some level, yes, any good examiner should be able to assess gifted kids. Where it may make a difference:

1. Queries: some items allow asking for clarification or elaboration, and although there are guidelines for the kinds of responses that should always be queried, GT examinees sometimes give divergent responses that are correct, but not as conventionally so. These should be queried for the underlying reasoning, which may be sound, if unusual.

2. Tells: although all examiners are supposed to be neutral in their testing behavior, so as not to signal anything about the accuracy of performance back to the examinee, in practice many examiners have tells, or can be careless about how thoroughly they screen the record form from the examinee. The majority of NT or learning impaired children will not pick up on these little tells. GT children are another story, and have a high potential for having their responses affected (both positively and negatively) by this unconscious examiner feedback.

3. Interpretation: Yes, it does make a difference when it comes to test interpretation, especially for 2e students, not only in terms of score interpretation, but also in terms of testing behavior.

I've learned to run when I hear that line, because they might as well be wearing a big neon sign that says 'I don't get it." As others have noted, clinical judgement plays a huge part not just in interpreting results, but also in figuring out how to interpret responses and build a score in the first place. The further the kids are from the norm in one area, the more likely they seem to be off-norm in others, whether you are simply talking about divergent thinking, unusual behaviour, or an actual 2E situation. A specialist who doesn't understand what's "normal" for the population that includes your kid will struggle to assess them in an appropriate context - the "misdiagnosis" part of the Webb book mentioned above addresses this in depth. "Normal" behaviour for HG/PG may look pathological to someone who's never worked with this group.

Experience with gifted is even more important when you may have multiple exceptionalities in play. I have gone on endlessly on this forum (oops ) about how important it is not to underestimate how much a gifted kid can compensate, work around, and just plain hide disability and other kinds of challenge. They can maintain grade-appropriate, and even high achievement, for years before the demands overwhelm their compensating mechanisms. And absorb a lot of negative feedback about being lazy and not trying hard enough, if teachers can see the ability but not what's hindering it's expression. High anxiety and much damage can result from trying to keep up the pretence of normality for so long, and it's hard to re-build after the crash.

So you want someone experienced in how to strip away all those extra gifted compensating mechanisms and figure out what's left underneath - and find this before disaster occurs. Most won't see past the ability, and will tell you you're nuts/ crazy tiger parent to even suggest something is wrong.

You've received great replies. I'll just add this brief roundup of links:
1) As a starting point you may wish to check the lists on Hoagies' Gifted Education Page: Psychologists, Professionals.
2) The articles by Aimee Yermish and Nadia Webb, mentioned in this old post, may be of interest.
3) This old post on How much error can there be in test scores? may be of interest.